#new york times best of 2022

[boburnhamhistorian]

Hi, everyone! There are two newish articles that feature Bo and his works this week:

The Best of 2022 lists are starting to pour in and—to the surprise of no one—Jerrod Carmichael's Rothaniel has been chosen the Best Special of the year by the New York Times! 🙌🏼

Here's what Jason Zinoman said about the special directed AND edited by Bo:

It’s not often that “beautiful” is the first word that comes to mind about a stand-up special. For some, that might even sound like a backhanded compliment. When did beauty ever make you laugh? But Jerrod Carmichael’s “Rothaniel,” a radically intimate, cinematically shot production, is a departure for him and stand-up more broadly. Its melancholy tone and patient pace set up new kinds of clever jokes. And its exquisite aesthetic features stunning and unexpected shots staged by the director, Bo Burnham, that emphasize the theme of mystery and secrets. Carmichael’s language manages to be unorthodox and elegant, and the way he interacts with the audience displays a vulnerability that is as moving as it is funny. (Streaming on HBO Max.)

If you'd like to learn more about Jerrod's special, I highly recommend my series of interviews with audience members who attended one of the four tapings.

The article similarly mentions the recipient of Best Nonsense is Kate Berlant's Cinnamon in the Wind, which was another comedy special directed by Bo (albeit in 2019!):

Kate Berlant had a breakthrough year primarily because of her hit live show, but she also released a sketch-driven special (with John Early) and a black-and-white stand-up hour on FX on Hulu, “Cinnamon in the Wind,” which captured her riveting comedy of the past decade. It comes off as entirely improvised (“I don’t want to belittle what we have,” she tells to the audience, “with material.”). Fans will recognize how she takes a cliché, twists it just enough to seem off — but not so much as to be a straight spoof. “I don’t know if anything has ever happened to anyone here,” she says and then stops. “I don’t want to assume.” (Streaming on Hulu.)

The other item is a recent Cracked article about the prescient nature of Zach Stone, featuring quotes from one of the show's writers (obviously NOT Bo). You can check it out here!

[rosalie-starfall]

Michelle Yeoh - New York Times 10 best Actors of the Year 2022

[wellesleybooks]

Every year since 1952, the New York Times Book Review has asked a panel of judges to select 10 books from among the several thousand children’s books published that year.

Starting in 2017, the New York Times partnered with the New York Public Library in selecting these titles.  To reflect this change, the name of the award changed to "The New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award."

And the award winners are:

Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall

Yellow Dog Blues by Alice Faye Duncan illustrated by Chris Raschka

Night Lunch by Eric Fan illustrated by Dena Seiferling

Telling Stories Wrong by Gianni Roari illustrated by Beatrice Alemagna

Bedtime for Bo by Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold illustrated by Mari Kanstad Johnsen

The Upside Down Hat by Stephen Barr illustrated by Gracey Zhang

The New Rooster by Rilla Alexander

The Writer by Davide Cali illustrated by Monica Barengo

Where Butterflies Fill the Sky by Zahra Marwan

Still this Love Goes On by Buffy Sainte-Marie illustrated by Julie Flett

[rockislandadultreads]

New York Times Best Books of 2022: Fiction

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

It’s 2010. Staggeringly successful and brilliant tech entrepreneur Bix Bouton is desperate for a new idea. He’s forty, with four kids, and restless when he stumbles into a conversation with mostly Columbia professors, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, Own Your Unconscious - that allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others - has seduced multitudes. But not everyone.

In spellbinding linked narratives, Egan spins out the consequences of Own Your Unconscious through the lives of multiple characters whose paths intersect over several decades. Egan introduces these characters in an astonishing array of styles - from omniscient to first person plural to a duet of voices, an epistolary chapter, and a chapter of tweets. In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.

Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett

In a working-class town in a county west of London, a schoolgirl scribbles stories in the back pages of her exercise book, intoxicated by the first sparks of her imagination. As she grows, everything and everyone she encounters become fuel for a burning talent. The large Russian man in the ancient maroon car who careens around the grocery store where she works as a checkout clerk, and slips her a copy of Beyond Good and Evil. The growing heaps of other books in which she loses-and finds-herself. Even the derailing of a friendship, in a devastating violation. The thrill of learning to conjure characters and scenarios in her head is matched by the exhilaration of forging her own way in the world, the two kinds of ingenuity kindling to a brilliant conflagration.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration.

The Furrows by Namwali Serpell 

Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they're alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The missing boy cleaves the family with doubt. Their father leaves, starts another family elsewhere. But their mother can't give up hope and launches an organization dedicated to missing children.

As C grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in bistros, airplane aisles, subway cars. Here is her brother's face, the light in his eyes, the way he seems to recognize her, too. But it can't be, of course. Or can it? Then one day, in another accident, C meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who is also searching for someone and for his own place in the world. His name is Wayne.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the brilliant daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth. But the secrets around their affluence and grandeur incites gossip. Rumors about Benjamin's financial maneuvers and Helen's reclusiveness start to spread - all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. At what cost have they acquired their immense fortune?

[ms-demeanor]

Friends, I think we need to talk about Covid.

I want to get a few caveats out there before I start:

I am aware that there are people who need to exercise extreme caution about Covid; I live with someone who has two solid organ transplants and who is at the most immune compromised level of immune compromised. *I* have to be extremely cautious about covid.

Masking does prevent a certain level of transmission, and people who think they may have covid should mask and people who are concerned that they may be at high risk for covid should mask.

You should be vaccinated and boosted with the most recent vaccines that are available to you; covid is highly transmissible and very serious, you do not want to get covid and if you do get covid you don't want it to be severe and if you do get covid you don't want to give someone else covid and up-to-date vaccinations are the best way to reduce transmission and help to prevent severe cases of Covid.

We should be testing before going to any gatherings, and informing people if we test positive after gatherings, and testing if we suspect we have been exposed.

It is bullshit that there aren't good protections for workers who have covid; you should not be expected to go to work when you are testing positive

It is bullshit that people who are testing positive are not isolating for other reasons; if you have Covid you should not be going out and exposing other people to it even if you are experiencing mild symptoms or no symptoms.

We do need better ventilation systems for many kinds of spaces. Schools need better ventilation, restaurants need better ventilation, doctor's offices and hospitals and office buildings need better ventilation and better ventilation can reduce covid transmission.

I want to make it clear that Covid is real and there are real steps that individuals and systems can take to prevent transmission, and that there are systems that are exerting pressures that needlessly expose people to covid (the fact that you can lose your job if you don't come in when you're testing positive, mainly; also the fact that covid rapid tests should be ubiquitous and cheap/free and are not).

All of that being said: I'm seeing some posts circulating about how we're at an extremely high level of transmission and the REAL pandemic is being hidden from us and, friends, I'm pretty sure that is just incorrect and we're spreading misinformation.

I'm thinking of this video in particular, in which the claim is made that "your mystery illness is covid" in spite of negative tests. The guy in the video says that there's nothing else that millions of people could be getting a day, and that he predicted this because a wastewater spike in December meant that there was a huge spike in cases.

I've also seen people saying that deaths are where they were in 2021-2022, and that we're still at "a 9/11 a week" of excess deaths and friends, I'm not seeing great evidence for any of these claims.

I know that we (in the US, which is where the numbers I'm going to be citing are from) feel abandoned by the CDC and the fact that tracking cut off in May of 2023. But that only cut off for the federal tracking.

I live in LA county and LA county sure as shit is still tracking Covid.

If you want a clearer picture, you can see the daily case count over time compared to the daily death count:

Okay, you might say, but that's just LA.

Alright, so here's Detroit:

Right, but maybe that's CDC data and you don't trust the CDC at this point.

Okay, here's fatalities in New York tracked through New York's state data collection:

It's harder to toggle around the site for South Dakota, but you can compare their cases and hospitalizations and deaths for early 2022

To cases and hospitalizations and deaths from early 2024

And see that there's really no comparison.

Okay, you might say, but people are testing less. If they're testing less of course we're not seeing spikes, and they're testing less because fewer tests are available.

Alright, people are definitely testing less than they were in 2021 and 2022. Hospitalization for Covid is probably the most clear metric because you know those people have covid for sure, the couldn't not test for it.

Here are hospitalizations over time for LA:

Here are hospitalizations over time for New York:

As vaccination rates have gone up, cases, deaths, and hospitalizations have gone down. It IS clear that there are case spikes in the winter, when it is cold and people are indoors in poorly ventilated spaces and people are more susceptible to respiratory infections as a result of cold air weakening the protection offered by our mucous membranes, and that is something that we will have to take precautions about for the forseeable future, just as we should have always been taking similar precautions during flu season.

So I want to go point-by-point through some of the arguments made in that video because I'm seeing a bunch of people talking about how "THEY" don't want you to know about the virus surge and buds that is just straight up conspiracism.

So okay, first off, most of what that video is based on is spikes in wastewater data, not spikes in cases. This is because people don't trust CDC data on cases, but I'd say to maybe check out your regional data on cases. I don't actually trust the CDC that much, but I know people who do tracking of hospitalizations in LA county, I trust them a lot more. Wastewater data does correlate with increases in cases, but this "second largest spike of the entire pandemic" thing is misleading; wastewater reporting is pretty highly variable and you can't just accept that a large spike in covid in wastewater means that we're in just as bad a place in the pandemic as we were in 2022. We simply have not seen the surge of hospitalizations and deaths that we would expect to see in the weeks following that spike in wastewater data if wastewater data was reflective of community transmission.

The next claim is that "there is nothing else that is infecting millions of people a day" and covid isn't doing that either. The highest daily case rates were in January of 2021 and they were in the 865k a day range, which is ridiculously high but isn't millions of cases a day.

But what we can see is that when people are tested by their doctors for Covid, RSV, and the Flu, more tests are coming back positive for the Flu. Covid causes more hospitalizations than the other two illnesses, but to be honest what the people in the video are describing - lightheadedness, dizziness, exhaustion - just sound like pretty standard symptoms of everything from covid to the cold to allergies. There are lots of things your mystery illness could be.

The video goes on to talk about the fact that people aren't testing, and why their tests may be coming back negative and I'd like to point out that the same things are all true of Flu or RSV tests. People might be getting tested too early or too late; getting a negative test for the flu isn't a good reason to assume you've got covid, getting a negative test for covid isn't a good reason to assume you've got the flu, and testing for viruses as a whole is imperfect. There are hundreds of viruses that could be the common cold; there are multiple viruses that can cause bronchitis; there are multiple viruses that can cause pneumonia, and you're not going to test for all of these things the moment you start feeling sick.

He then recommends testing for multiple days if you have symptoms and haven't had a positive test (fine) and talks about the location of the tests (less fine). Don't use your rapid tests to swab your throat or cheek unless it specifically says that they are designed to do so. Test based on the instructions in the packet.

He points out that the tests probably still pick up on the virus because they're not testing for the spike protein, they're testing for the RNA (good info!)

The video then discusses something that I think is really key to this paranoia about the "mystery illnesses" - he talks about how covid changes and weakens your immune system (a statement that should come with many caveats about severity and vulnerability and that we are still researching that) and then says that it makes you more susceptible to strep or mono and that "things that used to clear in a day or two now hit you really hard."

And that's where I think this anxiety is coming from.

Strep throat lasts anywhere from three days to a week. A cold takes about a week to clear. The flu lasts about a week and can knock you on your ass with exhaustion for weeks depending on how bad you get it. Did you get a cough with your cold? Expect that to take anywhere from three to eight weeks to clear up.

I think that people are thinking "i got a bad virus and felt really sick for a week and haven't gotten my energy back" but that just sounds like a bad cold. That sounds like a potent allergy attack. That doesn't even sound like a bad flu (I got a bad flu in 2009 and thought i was going to straight-up die I had a fever of 103+ for three days and felt like shit for three days on either side of that and took six weeks to feel more like myself again).

Getting sick sucks. It really, really sucks. But if you're getting sick and you're testing for covid and it's coming back negative after you tested a few times, it's almost certainly not covid.

The video then says "until someone provides evidence that it's not covid, it should be assumed to be covid because we have record levels of covid it's that simple" but that's not simple. We don't have record levels of covid and he hasn't proved it. We have record high levels of wastewater reports of covid, which correlates with covid cases but the spike in wastewater noted in december didn't see a spike with a corresponding magnitude of cases in terms of either hospitalizations or deaths, which is what we'd have seen if we had actual record numbers of covid.

He says that if you want to ignore this, you'll get sick with covid, and that about 30-40% of the US just got sick with covid in the last four months (which is a RIDICULOUSLY unevidenced claim).

He says that we need to create a new normal that takes covid into account, which means masking more often and testing more often and making choices about risk-avoidant behaviors.

Now, I don't disagree with that last statement, but he prefaces the statement with "it doesn't necessarily mean lockdown" and that's where I think the alarmism and paranoia is really visible here. We are so, so far away from "lockdown" type levels that it's absurd to discuss lockdown here.

What I'm seeing right now is people who are chronically ill, people who are immune compromised, and people who are experiencing long covid (which may not be distinct from other post-viral syndromes from severe cases of flu, etc, but which may be more severe or more notable because of the prevalence of covid) are talking about feeling abandoned and attacked and left behind by society because covid is still out there, and still at extremely high levels.

I am seeing people who feel abandoned and attacked because the lgbtq+ events they are attending don't require masking. I am seeing people who are claiming that it is eugenicist that their schools don't have a negative test policy anymore.

And this comes together into two really disconcerting trends that I've been observing online for a while.

The claim that the pandemic is still as bad as it's ever been and in fact may be worse but we can't know that because "they" (the CDC, the government, capitalist institutions that want you back in the office, the university industrial complex that wants your dorm room dollars) are covering up the numbers and

Significant grievance at the fact that people are acting like number one is not true and are putting you at risk either out of thoughtlessness (because they don't realize they're putting you at risk) or malice (because they don't care if the sick die).

And those things are a recipe for disaster.

I think I've pretty robustly addressed point one; I don't think that there's good evidence that there's a secretly awful surge of covid that nobody is talking about. I think that there are some people who are being alarmist about covid who are basing all of their concern on wastewater numbers that have not held up as the harbinger of a massive wave of infections.

So let's talk about point number two and JK Rowling.

Barnes and Noble is not attacking you when it puts up a Hogwarts Castle display in the lobby. Your favorite youtuber isn't trying to hurt you when they offhandedly mention Harry Potter.

If you let every mention of Harry Potter or every person who enjoys that media franchise wound you, you are going to spend a lot of your time wounded.

People are not liking Harry Potter at you.

Okay.

People are also not not wearing masks at you.

You may be part of a minority group that experiences the potential for outsized harm as a result of majority groups engaging in perfectly reasonable behaviors.

There are kind, well-meaning, sensible people who go out every day and do something that may cause you harm and it's not because they want to hurt you or they don't care about whether you live or die, it is because they are making their own risk assessments based on their own lives and making the very reasonable assumption that people who are more concerned about covid than they are will take precautions to keep themselves safe.

We are not at a place in the pandemic where it is sensible to expect people with no symptoms of illness to mask in public as a matter of course or to present evidence of a recent negative test when entering a public building in their day-to-day life.

I think now is a really good time to sit down and ask yourself how you expect things to be with covid as an endemic part of our viral ecosystem. I think now is a good time to ask yourself what risk realistically looks like for you and for people who are unlike you. I think now is a good time to consider what would feel "safe" for you and how you could accomplish feeling safe as you navigate the world.

I'm probably going to continue masking in most indoor spaces for years. Maybe forever. There are accommodations that SHOULD be afforded to people who have to take more precautions than others (remote learning, remote visits, remote work, etc.), and we should demand those kinds of accommodations.

But it is going to poison you from the inside out if you are perpetually angry that people who don't have the same medical limitations as you are happy that they get to go shopping with their faces uncovered.

So now I want to talk to you about my father in law.

My father in law had a bone marrow transplant in 2015. That's the most immune compromised you can get without having your organs swapped out.

The care sheet for him after the transplant was a little overwhelming. The list of foods he couldn't eat was intimidating and the limitations on where he could go was depressing. It cautioned against going to large events, it recommended outdoor gatherings where possible but only if he could avoid sunlight and was somewhere with no history of valley fever. It said that he should wear masks indoors any time he was someplace with poor ventilation and that he should avoid contact with anyone who had an illness of any kind, taking special note to avoid children and anyone recently vaccinated for measles.

It was, in short, pretty much what someone immune compromised would need to do to try to avoid a viral infection. Sensible. Reasonable. Wash your hands and social distance; wear masks in sensitive contexts and don't spend time in enclosed places with people who have a communicable illness.

This is what life was always going to be like for people who are severely immune compromised, and it was always going to be incumbent upon the person with the illness to figure out how to operate in a society that is not built with them in mind.

It is not the job of every parent I encounter to tell me whether their child has been vaccinated against measles or chicken pox in the last three months. That isn't something that people need to do as part of their everyday life. However it IS my responsibility to check with the parents I'm hanging out with whether their children have been vaccinated against measles or chicken pox in the last three months so I know if it's safe for my immune compromised spouse to be around them.

If you want an environment in which you feel safe from covid, at this point in the pandemic (when the virus is endemic and not spreading rapidly as far as we can see from case counts) it is your responsibility to take the steps necessary to make you feel safe. Some of those steps will involve advocating for safety improvements in public spaces (again, indoor ventilation needs to be better and I'm personally pretty extreme about vaccination requirements; these are things we should be discussing in our school board meetings and at our workplaces), some of those steps will involve advocating for worker protections, guaranteed sick time, and the right to healthcare. But some of the things you're going to need to do to feel safe are going to come down to you.

If you are concerned about communicable diseases you have to be realistic about the fact that our society doesn't go out of its way to prevent communicable diseases - norovirus among food service workers pre-pandemic is pretty clear evidence of that. You are going to have to be proactive about your safety rather than expecting the world to act like Covid is at 2021-2022 levels when it is measurably not.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Daddy Yankee - Gasolina 2004

"Gasolina" was released as the lead single from Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee's 2004 album Barrio Fino in the US in October 2004. By November 6, WSKQ-FM in New York City reported "Gasolina" in their top 10 rotation, and WRTO-FM in Florida said the song was their number one most-played track. It entered the US Billboard Hot 100 chart a week later, rising to number 32 in January 2005. "Gasolina" was a hit in North America and the Caribbean, gaining Daddy Yankee popularity among Latino mainstream music fans. In July 2005, "Gasolina" was released as a single in the UK, eventually earning a Silver certification in March 2019. Australia saw the single enter their charts in late January 2006 during their summer season, rising to number 12. "Gasolina" was the first reggaeton song to be nominated for the Latin Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Glory sings the line "dame más gasolina", although she is not credited.

In 2015, the song was ranked number nine on the "50 Greatest Latin Songs of All Time" list according to Billboard. In 2018, it was ranked number 38 on Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Latin Pop Songs. In 2017, it was included on Billboard's "12 Best Dancehall & Reggaeton Choruses of the 21st Century" at number eight. In 2021, it was ranked number 50 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and a year later it was ranked at the first place on their 2022 "100 Greatest Reggaeton Songs of All Time" list. In 2023, "Gasolina" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The song was used in the 2023 movie Fast X / Fast & Furious 10.

"Gasolina" received a total of 77,4% yes votes!

[jayblanc]

Chinese Censorship of the 2023 Hugo Award Nominations

Back before the 2023 Hugo Nominations were conducted, I noted that the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo committee had inserted a worrying clause indicating that local government officials could invalidate nominations for breaching the norms and standards of China. I suspected this would result in arbitrarily applied censorship to control the ballot. I am sad and unsurprised to discover I was correct.

The 2023 Hugo Nomination vote data has been published (https://www.thehugoawards.org/2024/01/2023-nominating-and-final-ballot-statistics-published/), and includes notation where nominations were excluded from the ballot. Those with normal reasons, such as being in the wrong category or not being published in 2022 are identified with their reasons for exclusion. This time there are a number of nominations that are merely marked at "Not eligible".

Here is the list of those nominations, that would otherwise have been placed on the final 2023 Hugo Award Ballot.

Babel - R.F. Kuang - Best Novel: Very likely excluded for referencing student revolution, and the use of language and translation as coercive tools of oppression. Color the World - Congyun "Mu Ming" Hu - Best Novellette : A story about perception of, aid of, and discrimination against disability. Congyun Hu has left China and now lives in New York. Fogong Temple Padoga - Hai Ya - Best Story : Either there is something in the original Chinese that was not translated, there's a taboo subject that elides my reading, or this otherwise innocent looking near future tale of cultural building restoration was written by the wrong person. The Art of Ghost of Tsushima: Dark Horse and Sucker Punch Games - Best Related Work : The video game Ghost of Tsushima was subject to directed social exclusion for it's depiction of the Mongol invasion of Japan. Sandman, Amazon Studios: Best Dramatic Presentation (Long and Short) - A diverse and divergent cast, includes subject matter and social issues that are currently taboo in China. Paul Weimer - Fan Writer: Publicly Critical of holding a Worldcon in China. Xiran Jay Zhao - Astounding Award: Qualifying work "Iron Widow" is reimagined story of Chinese Empress Wu during a fantasy/mechanical alien invasion.

This raises a lot of questions as to if this basically taints the process, and what can be done about it.

[shadowboxerinc]

Best of 2022 in TV According to...

Best of 2022 in TV According to…

12.22.22 Good Evening! We are now going into the best of 2022 in television. We have IGN, The New York Times, and Polygon. Best TV Episodes of 2022 – The New York Times TV in the streaming era is an endless feast. This year, series like “Barry,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Pachinko,” “Station Eleven” and “This Fool” offered some of the best bites. By James Poniewozik, Mike Hale and Margaret Lyons The…

[readingtrend]

Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Find the #1 NYT Bestseller Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus from your local library. Click Check on Amazon to read book reviews on Amazon. Click Google Preview to read chapters from Google Books if available. Click Find in Library to check book availability at your local library. If the default library is not correct, follow Change Local Library to reset it. Lessons In Chemistry by: Bonnie…

[booksofdelight]

The Best Books Lists of 2022

With 2022 coming to an end, the end of year book lists came in droves. It seemed like every organization had their own best books of 2022 list. And we covered most of them here. Well, the major ones anyway. We compiled a list of the best books lists of 2022 so you can check them out from one page! The Best Books Lists of 2022 The Best Books Lists of 2022 USA TODAY’s Best Books of…

[luvyeni]

SEX FASHION GUITAR — JAEMIN SMAU MASTERLIST

𐙚 pairings. rockstar!jaemin x stylist!reader

✧ genre. rockstar!au, fwb!au crack/humor, fluff, angst college au ( ? ), mutual pining

warnings. swearing, death jokes, eventual smut, jaemin is a fuckboy highkey, will add more if needed

synopsis. l/n y/n fashion major and photographer on the side who says what she wants, na jaemin music major and lead guitar player for underground band DREAM. After yn forgets her to change her account and says something that catches the eye of jaemin she tries to ignore him — expect thanks to chenle she now works for them.

characters. l/n y/n, na jaemin, 7dream, sieun ( stayc ) winter ( aespa ) ft. hanbin ( zb1 )

started. 04-01-2024

ended. 04-22-2022

authors note. been working on this for a minute and i can't wait for you guys to read it❤️

let me know if you want to be added !

( 🩶 ) ... LET'S PLAY !

0.) PROFILES

1.) nightmare fuel ...

2.) will you do it ? ...

3.) fuck elon musk ...

4.) not that bad 😆 ...

5.) down a peg ...

6.) fitting day📍...

7.) unfair treatment ...

8.) he's unsaveable ...

9.) 5 minutes until show time ... ( written )

10.) not to your face , no ...

11.) no need to fight it ...

12.) next time ... ( written )

13.) stay the night ...

14.) that random dude ...

15.) throwing me off 😐...

16.) how far are you willing to go ...

17.) nice guy ...

18.) bowling with hanbin ...

19.) maybe it's time ...

20.) let's end it ...

21.) hostility in the chat 😬 ...

22.) spiraling ...

23.) new york ...

24.) im sorry ... ( written ) ...

25.) best non-confirmed boyfriend ever ...

26.) y/n is better ...

27.) debut day ( im sorry pt 2. ) ...

28.) release party ...

29.) number 1 ! ...

30.) people really like us ...

31.) rumored ...

32.) next week ...

33.) music show ...

34.) so happy ...

35.) disney ass outfit ...

36.) he's mine ...

BONUS CHAPTERS !

1.) jaemin not having media training ...

2.) dreams first award ...

3.) the girls vs jaeminslvt ...

©️LUVYENI

[midnightsslut]

A Guide to Red - The Quintessential Taylor Swift Album

After the release of The Manuscript, the role of Red and Red (Taylor’s Version) in Taylor’s life and discography has been highly discussed. A lot of people have referred to it as her magnum opus and most formative album. I have decided to compile a condensed list of about a dozen key interviews, performances, speeches, posts, and videos from 2011 all the way until 2024 that illustrate the importance of this record for Taylor’s personal life and career. I’m putting the list under a cut because it got pretty long. You don’t have to go through all of these, obviously, but I would suggest at least one per era. The bolded ones are essential in my opinion.

Pre-Red - These interviews hint at Taylor’s emotional state at the time and thus the content that will be explored on the Red album

2011 The New Yorker profile

Taylor Swift reveals new album is all about heartbreak - Extra TV

Bonus: an article going through Taylor’s arm lyrics on the Speak Now World Tour, which she described as mood rings for any particular show

Lover diary entries from the making of Red (credit to @cabincreaking for the scans)

- All Too Well lyrics first draft (February 2011)

- Random bursts of happiness and anxiety during the Speak Now Tour (June 17, 2011)

- Red (September 8, 2011)

- Holy Ground (February 2012)

- Nothing New (March 2, 2012)

- Working with Max Martin (June 10, 2012)

Red era - Listen to the original sixteen songs on the Red album at this point.

Red announcement livestream + Q&A

Red prologue

2012 Rolling Stone interview

2012 The Guardian interview

2012 Billboard interview

2012 Esquire interview

Sirius XM Town Hall - an hourlong interview from the day Red came out

Good Morning America - this is the first mention of the ten-minute version of All Too Well

Red track-by-track descriptions

Random interview where she discusses the connection between writing Speak Now and Red

I Knew You Were Trouble music video

Diary entry about how love is fiction and she might move to New York after all (January 6, 2014)

Diary entry from Grammy night (January 25, 2014)

Red Tour London performance of All Too Well - any performance of this song from 2013-14 will work here, but this one has a pretty comprehensive speech

Final performance of All Too Well on the Red Tour - just listen to the speech here

Post-Red era - Over the course of these interviews, you’ll see her relationship to the album evolve.

Taylor’s description of Clean (skip to 11:18)

2014 BBC Live Lounge interview

1989 World Tour interview where she mentions thinking she’d never sell as many albums as she did with Red before 1989 came out

Clean speech - a lot of these will work, but these two best describe her relationship with the Red era and heartbreak in general

All Too Well (The 1989 World Tour live)

2015 GrammyPro interview

All Too Well Super Saturday Night performance

Reputation Tour All Too Well speech

Red into Daylight performance - 2019 City of Lover concert in Paris

Re-recordings era - at this point, listen to the red vault

2020 Rolling Stone podcast

Red (Taylor’s Version) prologue

2021 Saturday Night Live performance

All Too Well: The Short Film + Behind the Scenes

Seth Meyers interview

2022 Tribeca film talk OR TIFF (both are equally good. I have a slight preference for the former, but there are some interesting new details in the latter). You could also watch directors on directors from the same year as a bonus, but it’s less comprehensive.

2022 Graham Norton - How All Too Well (10 Minute Version) came about + how the re-recordings inspired Midnights

Also listen to Midnights

The Eras Tour

All Too Well speech (Glendale Night 2 & Atlanta Night 1) - any of the speeches from March and April 2023 will work, but these two really illustrate how she feels about this time in her life now and how the fans changed the Red album for her. Obviously credit to @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes for the transcripts!

Maroon first ever live performance (‘This is a song about something that happened a long time ago, but it took place in New York’)

Aaaand finally listen to The Tortured Poets Department, especially The Manuscript

This is a lot, but it’s worth it. Enjoy!

[lemoncrushh]

MASTERLIST

>> Learn a little about me and my writing here <<

>> Check out all my old fics on Wattpad (2015-2022) << * I am currently reposting old fics here since Wattpad decided to delete some. *

Everything is in order from oldest to newest. You will see me adding more links to the top as I'm reposting old fics.

Show Me Your Texts, or It's Over Harry finds out you've been in contact with your ex and gives you an ultimatum.

Just for the Record After returning home from a concert with Harry, you share a smoke and a bed.

Scars You have scars and are hesitant about letting Harry see you naked for the first time.

I Miss You You’ve grown frustrated and lonely because Harry is always busy.

Best Friends You and Harry are best friends, but he would love for it be more.

Rooms On Fire (The Morning After) You meet Harry Styles at a party and have an amazing night.

Slave 4 U 2 Harry is ready to take you home for a little role play.

The Opera You and Harry can’t keep your hands off each other at the opera.

My Home You and Harry visit his family, but you have to stay in Gemma’s room.

A Night Out with Harry You take care of Harry after a drunken night out.

Back For You Harry is in town, and you go visit him at the hotel.

Melt A sexy evening with Harry.

Heartstrings You become One Direction’s new guitarist and you and your best friend Harry realize you have feelings for each other.

What's It Like You can’t sleep and decide to pay Harry a visit in the next room.

The Lucky One Harry is not too pleased when you run into your old high school crush at a restaurant.

Too Long It’s been too long since you and Harry have had sex.

Anniversary Pancakes Harry and his daughter make breakfast for his wife on their anniversary

We're Gonna Have a Baby Telling Harry he’s gonna be a dad.

Lyrics and Melodies: AM A very smitten Harry takes Julia back to his place for drinks and more music.

Claiming His Territory Harry gets jealous when he thinks another guy fancies you, and he decides to claim his territory.

This Is Me You're Talking To You and Harry are divorced, but you both still have feelings for each other.

Meeting Harry Styles After actress Mia Tangelo meets Harry Styles at a One Direction concert, he surprises her by showing up at her film premiere.

Kiss Me Kiss Me Samantha and Harry’s story of young romance and a first kiss.

Sweat Some post-workout sex.

Saturday Night Harry needs comforting after his performance on SNL.

Live From New York Harry’s on SNL and he gets a little jealous when he thinks you’re not there for him.

Leather and Lace The night Harry sang with Stevie at the Troubadour.

I Wish That It Could Be Like That An affair with Harry has taken its toll and is no longer enough.

Faithfully Harry shares the story of how you two met and fell in love.

Running On Empty An unfortunate incident at the gym.

Sometimes It Be That Way Soon after a breakup, Lilliana met Harry…but their relationship may have been doomed from the start.

Stones T-Shirt Commenting on Harry’s Rolling Stones shirt at a party leads to going to a concert with him.

Carrot Cake Harry has something he’s been wanting to ask Y/N, but the timing is never right.

Kinda Perfect It’s a girls’ night out and Harry shows up, but you decide not to let your new friend Tiffany know that Harry is your boyfriend.

What Happens In Vegas... Your Vegas trip to celebrate your friend’s birthday turns into a night you hadn’t expected when you meet Harry Styles in the casino.

Easy Like Sunday Morning It's your last day with Harry before he leaves.

Connect Not wanting to lose their connection, Lily takes a surprise trip to see Harry.

Comfort Food Jessica, a self-proclaimed foodie, helps her classmate Harry study for their Biology test.

Her Album Harry has finished recording his album, and he wants her to hear it. [in Harry's POV]

Ruin the Friendship It’s Ella’s birthday, and her best friend Harry plans to tell her how he feels about her.

You and I Alyssa always wanted Harry, so every time he called, she was there waiting for him at the bar. But one night, things shifted between them.

Rain Rain Lexie is on her way to visit her sister, and she’s taking Harry on the road trip with her, planning to drop him off at his friend’s house for a wedding. But the weather has other plans.

That Sunday, That Summer Kelly’s roommate Bianca talks her into participating in a celebrity charity scavenger hunt that Harry Styles surprisingly attends.

Friends Don't Harry and Gabriella have been good friends for a few years. But neither of them knows the feelings the other has.

Dressing For Revenge // Part 2 Still heartbroken from finding your ex cheating on you, you go to a nightclub with your friend Kelsie, where not only do you run into your ex, but also a handsome gentleman who’s willing to help you get over him.

Kiss Me Deadly The annual Halloween party at the local pub has Y/N excited when she decides to invite her boss at the University, Mr. Styles. But she soon begins to second guess her decision when Harry starts acting odd. Is Harry Styles really who she thinks he is? Will this Halloween be a fantasy come true…or the kiss of death?

Through the Wall Harry is your handsome neighbour, and you keep hearing him through the wall.

bad idea harry styles is back from uni and he looks better than you remember. problem is, he's your ex's brother.

break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored part 2 of bad idea - after that one night with harry, you can't stop thinking about him...but things don't exactly turn out like you'd hoped.

Touch You’ve been having a hard time getting yourself off, so your roommate Harry offers a hand.

Filthy Cute You and Harry are in a secret relationship, and you get a little jealous when you think he’s flirting with your friend.

Out of Bounds After a few years of being a housewife, Tisa Jordan decided to go back to school. Hoping to find inspiration and a new direction in life, she didn’t expect to meet Harry Styles, a handsome British twenty-year-old. [39 chapters, reposting daily]

Cubicle  I’m Harry. I have a mundane job where I sit in a cubicle all day. But things just got better because the hottest babe just started working here. And I’m determined to make her mine, even if just for one night. I’m Roni. I just started this new job, but all I can think about is the hottie in the corner cubicle. I think he likes me too. [22 chapters]

Fratboy Harry Harry Styles was a boy with a reputation, one that you couldn’t care less about. Yet one night at a frat party changed everything. [10 parts]

The Entertainer Set in the 70s, Sky Jones, a young woman from L.A., meets Harry Styles, an up-and-coming musician and frontman for the band Wildfire. Told in first person from Sky’s point of view, she shares her journey and what it’s like to fall for a rockstar. [10 parts]

Too Far From Texas Stacey Barnett is a writer and a single mother. Her hands full with two daughters (one with special needs), a newly published novel, an extroverted best friend and a controlling ex-husband, the last thing she expects is to meet an international pop star. [33 chapters]

Seven Six Five They met once seven years ago. Now music has made them cross paths again. (Real Harry x Plus Size OC, enemies to lovers) [6 parts]

Tattooed Heart You are a cocktail waitress at a swanky lounge. Harry comes in one night, and you instantly dislike him. But another encounter eventually changes your opinion. (Tattoo artist!harry x waitress y/n, enemies to lovers) [6 parts]

The Entertainer II * Updates will be sporadic * What if it wasn’t the end? What if Sky did actually see Harry at the Forum in the early 80s, and he saw her too? What if fate took hold of them both, and they realized their journey was not over? Set in 1981, Harry and Sky’s story continues with more music, more romance, and a few more twists and turns.

Wild Horses * Updates will be sporadic * Amber Crosby didn’t end up with the life she’d expected, but that didn’t keep her from following her dream. A young, up and coming country recording artist, she and her band set out to do just that. Trying to leave her past behind, it wasn’t until meeting Harry Styles that she realized just how her life could take a turn and alter her future forever.

Ko-fi (if you're feeling generous and would like to support me)

Inbox (for requests, feedback or general chat)

divider credit

[zegrasdrysdale]

Can you write about Nico dating a really famous actress, she is in House of the Dragon and in Dune, and now she is doing the press tour for the movie so she hasn't seen Nico in a while so to surprise him she goes to the stadium series and is at the family skate with him holding hands and being cute the whole time, so Nico is asked about their relationship the press conference after the game and he answered the question being a proud boyfriend, please? I love your writing

[ press pause ] n. hischier

paring : Nico Hischier x fem!reader

summary : after being away for a few months filming and doing press for her projects, (Y/N) surprises boyfriend Nico at family skate before the Stadium Series

warning(s) : one suggestive comment but other than that, cute and fluffy

author’s note : this request has been sitting in my drafts bc i wasn’t very proud of it but i decided to let it see the light of day bc i miss the stadium series. pls lmk what y’all think (the entire press conference is completely made up for the sake of the fic btw)

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She needed a vacation by the time her tour ended in New York City. It’s exhausting doing a multi-month press tour for a show that wasn’t coming out until the summer. She knows she’ll have to go on another one anyway while the season is airing on HBO.

The idea didn’t enter her mind until she saw a billboard on the highway going into New York. It advertises the two NHL Stadium Series games that are happening in a few days.

When the games were announced a few months ago, she was already booked on the press tour for season two of House of the Dragon. Nico wanted her to come to the game against the Flyers but she wasn’t sure if she’d be in the area to go.

Turns out, she is. Since she’s in the area, she decides to surprise her captain boyfriend at family skate.

Cat Toffoli worked closely with a designer to make some jackets for the wives and girlfriends of the players for the Stadium Series. She even made sure to make one with a “13” on it, just in case.

She’s happy that she gets to put the jacket to use since she’s surprising Nico at family skate. Pressing pause on her press tour to support her boyfriend in what’s one of the most important games of his life was the best idea she’s had in a while. It’s been a long time since she has laced up the skates Nico bought her when they first got together during the 2021-2022 season. Tonight seems a good time.

An Uber takes her from her shared apartment with Nico in Hoboken to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford once she's in something that she can comfortably skate in, which ends up being leggings, a red shirt, and her jacket that Cat had made for her. She grabs one of Nico's beanies out of the endless pile in his closet just in case her head gets cold.

She gets more excited the closer she gets to the football field turned hockey rink. She shakes with excitement when the Uber pulls into the player parking lot.

Cars are parked all over the place. She recognizes most of the cars that are parked. The Devils get the ice tonight for practice and family skate.

With her jacket wrapped tight around her and a duffel bag holding her skates, she heads in the back entrance. She shows her ID to the security guard, who gives her special credentials so everyone knows she’s allowed there and is allowed onto the ice.

She’s already late so she could pull off this surprise. All of the players and their families are out on the ice. With quick feet, she makes her way onto the field. Her duffel bag slung over her shoulder as she rushes to the rink.

As soon as she reaches the bench, someone tells, “Nice of you to join us!” She sits down so she can change into her skates. Jack skates by with a smile on his face. “He’s been hoping that you’d show up.”

Her eyes scan the ice to find her boyfriend. She finally is able to spot him as he skates over to her. Jack skates off and Nico takes his spot.

When her laces are tied, she stands up and Nico helps her over the boards. “You’re here?” he asks as she gains her balance on her skates. “I thought you were traveling today.”

“Decided to press pause so I could be here for you,” she tells him. “Wanted to support my boyfriend after all the supporting you’ve done for me.” Nico flashes his dimpled smile at her.

She takes in his appearance. He’s in full gear with his red practice jersey since they did practice before the families came onto the ice. He has on his Devils beanie with the pompom on top of his head. The eye black he has on his cheeks looks good.

Nico takes her hand and loosely laces their fingers. “I’m glad you came,” he says. “It wouldn’t have been the same if you weren’t here.”

“Your dad and sister came though,” she replies as Nico begins to skate backwards. He pulls her along and she manages to keep her balance by holding his hands. “I’m sure it would’ve been okay if I wasn’t able to come.”

He pulls her closer to him so her chest is pressed against his gear on his chest. Nico’s hands rest on her waist to make sure she doesn’t fall. “You’re the most important person in my life, schatzi,” he tells her. “It wouldn’t have been the same. I promise”

She smiles up at him.

Out of the corner of her eye, he notices all the cameras on the two of them. She’s not even surprised. She’s one of the world’s most known actresses and he’s the captain of the Devils. Reporters are probably getting all the pictures they can get.

Nico doesn't let go of her hand. He makes sure their fingers are locked the entire time she's on the ice.

It's easy to forget the world around her when she skates with Nico. She's so focused on Nico and Nico is so focused on her that it feels like they're the only two people in the world despite multiple pairs of eyes being on them and a bunch of cameras trained on them.

There's only a few minutes left of family skate when Nico decides that it would be a good idea to spin his girlfriend. When she's on the toe pick of her skates, because Nico thought it would be smart to get her figure skating skates, he grabs her hand and spins her around.

"Nico!" she gasps as she spins right into his arms. He wraps his arms around her waist "You can't just do that without warning me. What if I fell?"

He laughs against her ear. "You know I'll always have you," he tells her. "You would think that you'd be able to skate on your own by now."

She shakes her head as Nico kisses the swell of her ear. The smile that forms on her lips is involuntary since she's trying to be mad at Nico. "I don't think you understand that I skate maybe three times a year," she sighs. "My job doesn't involve skating like yours does."

Nico smiles and she looks up at him. "Have I ever told you how good you look on skates?" he asks. "Because this look does it for me. Hope you know that."

With a gentle shove from her, Nico backs away but always makes sure to keep a hand on her so she doesn't fall.

"You are so lucky that I love you," she says to Nico as she carefully turns to face him.

He hums and playfully rolls his eyes before he slides his hands up to cup her cheeks. His fingers are freezing, but she quickly pushes that thought out of her head when Nico pulls her in for a soft kiss. She can't help but smile as she returns the kiss.

It's very rare for Nico to show this type of affection in public let alone at a Devils event. They're both very shy about their relationship when it comes to the public eye, but sometimes a moment overwhelms them and they can't help it.

Like this moment. Center ice on the Stadium Series rink.

She wraps her arms around his waist for a little extra security. The last thing she wants to do right now is fall on her butt. She can hear all the snaps of the cameras the longer their lips are connected.

Nico breaks the kiss and smiles at her. She reaches up and pokes his dimple, which gets a laugh out of Nico.

"Alright, Dimple Lover," he says with a smile. "Let's go. I feel gross and sweaty. I need to shower."

"As long as I can join you if you decide to shower at home."

"We're going home right now."

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

From the moment Nico scored on Sam Ersson thirty seconds into the game, she's been on her feet. It set the pace for the rest of the game. The Devils scored two goals every period, and Nico himself scored two goals on the night.

East Rutherford is on fire in the stands. They're cheering. It gets even louder when Nico is being interviewed by Emily Kaplan on a live mic and he says, "Thanks for showing up. It was fucking amazing- sorry."

He has the cutest smile on his face and waves at the crowd around him. The smile she already had on her face grows impossibly bigger.

When Nico heads down the tunnel to get out of his gear, she heads down to stand outside the media room so she can catch Nico before he goes in and does his post-game comments.

She's liking pictures of her and Nico from yesterday on Instagram. She replies to some of her mentions on Twitter. She even posts one of the pictures of her and Nico from yesterday when they were on the ice at family skate. Almost immediately, it begins blowing up on every single social media platform like her posts usually do when she posts Nico.

Minutes after she posts the picture, Nico comes walking down the stairs that lead to the hallway. He's back in Sopranos outfit, sans the jacket. The white tank hugs his body and shows off his arms. The cut he has under his eye completes the look.

Nico spots her before he turns into the media room. He says that he'll be in the room in a second. Then he walks over to his girlfriend.

"Hi, handsome," she says with a smile on her face. "Nice goals. Oh, I like this outfit too."

He leans down and steals a kiss. "Those goals were for you, schatzi," he whispers to her as he tucks her hair behind her ear. "I had to show off for my girl."

She smiles up at him and he mirrors it.

"Nico, we need you in here," someone says. "Nate's ready to go."

Nico nods and looks into the room. "Want to come watch?" he asks. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

With a nod, the two of them head into the room.

The reporters buzz as Nico walks up to the table to sit with Nate and she makes her way to an empty seat among the reporters. The woman she sits next to has a moment of panic and realization of who she is as the press conference gets underway.

One of the reporters in the front row asks, "Nate, was that celly after your goal planned?"

Nate laughs and nods. "Yeah, actually," he replies. The reporters in the crowd laugh. "Chris and I sat down and planned out a couple of different cellys just in case either of us scored. I happened to be the one to score, twice."

"Speaking of two goals, Nico," another reporter begins to say. "How do you feel after those goals you scored? Effing amazing?"

Nico smiles. "Yeah, it felt good, without the addition of another word that shouldn't have been said on live television," he replies with a very light laugh. "No, it feels good to score two goals coming off the All Star break. Took some time off, skated and worked on what I needed to, and, uh, I'm ready to have a good second half of the season."

They make eye contact and she smiles at him. One of the reporters notices that Nico's smile has gotten softer. "So, your goals have nothing to do with the fact that your girlfriend was here all weekend?" a third reporter asks.

"The fact that she was able to take time out of her incredibly busy schedule to be here means a lot to me, yeah," Nico says. "Being able to score a couple goals was me telling her that I was happy she was here."

"So it doesn't bother you that her presence this weekend has made multiple headlines and occasionally overshadowed the game?"

Nico scans the crowd and finds the reporter that asked the question. "I have never once thought that her being here this weekend overshadowed the game," he replies. "I am more than happy to have her here. If she makes a view headlines then oh well. She's one of the world's most well known and talented actresses, and I am proud to be her boyfriend. If that means that some of the attention is off of me then okay."

She smiles and bites her bottom lip as she watches Nico while he and Nate finish up the press conference with questions about the game.

One of the things she's always been worried about was completely overshadowing Nico and his career with hers. Now that she knows that he's proud of her accomplishments.

As soon as Nico is done, he makes a beeline right for her. She opens her mouth to say something but Nico quickly cuts her off with his lips. She giggles into the kiss and wraps her arms around his neck.

Cameras click around them but she doesn't care. Neither does Nico if he meant what he said.

"Nico," she laughs as she breaks the kiss. "This is your day. Enough about me. Stop making me a headline by kissing me in front of the cameras."

He smiles. "I don't care," he tells her. "I'll kiss you in front of a million cameras."

She shakes her head and pushes his hair out of his face. "You are insane," she tells him.

"You love it."

"I do."

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MASTERLIST

have a request ? check out the guidelines !

wanna be added to the taglist ? fill out this form !

taglist : @dasiysthings @ithinkimokeei @equallyshaw @dancerbailey3 @love4lando @stony1386 @mangoluver @prettyinsatiable @ivy-34 @bunbunbl0gs

[rockislandadultreads]

New York Times Best Books of 2022 : Nonfiction

An Immense World by Ed Yong

The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.

We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.

In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken - with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity - is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them.

But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.

Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends - his memories - Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv

In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children���s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel - until it no longer does.

Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.

We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole

A quarter-century after Frank McCourt’s extraordinary bestseller, Angela’s Ashes, Fintan O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, continues the narrative of modern Ireland into our own time. O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity.

Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater” to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.

Under the Skin by Linda Villarosa 

In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to "live sicker and die quicker" compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.

[theyheoftheapocalypse]

marina toybina really waltzed into the my chemical romance world and proposed working on the tour herself and then got the job, proceeded to pull that cheerleader dress out in the matter of a few weeks, absolutely knocked it out of the park for the entire tour, got gerard on the new york times best dressed people of 2022, made a chainmail gown and generally was behind one of the most lifechanging events for mcr fans and trans people, is the first known public figure to use they/them for gerard way in writing, then did a podcast saying that the universe was behind all this and it was fate and destiny, and used both he/him and they/them for gerard out loud for ten whole minutes, then designed the most cunty secretary look ever and waited until several days after tour to tell us it was her. motherfucker i love her so much. welcome to the family marina